


so forgive me for doing what's best for you

by bi_and_bye



Category: We Are The Tigers - Allen
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Blood and Injury, I Tried, I'm Sorry, TW: Stabbing, first fic, i can't write
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:07:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27149167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bi_and_bye/pseuds/bi_and_bye
Summary: Reese doesn't manage to knock Riley out. It doesn't go very well for the team.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 19





	so forgive me for doing what's best for you

**Author's Note:**

> Riley isn't knocked out because it's never really made sense to me that she would be able to know Kate was sneaking up on her from behind but not realize Reese approaching her from the side. This is how I picture it going down if she didn't get knocked out. Disclaimer: I cannot write.

In a quick motion, Reese grabs the speaking weight and raises it to knock Riley out. In another world, this works. In another world, Riley falls limp, letting Kate go with only a minor injury. In another world, Riley is tied up and sent to jail. In this world, Riley points the knife at Reese instead. 

“Drop it,” she snarls. Reese, her eyes wide with terror, complies. Kate whimpers as Riley’s arm tightens around her neck. 

Backing away, Riley swings the knife wildly at the girls as they huddle on the opposite side of the room. Kate whines again, a silent plea, and they can’t do anything but stare at her in horror, unable to help. 

“You know, Kate, I never meant to kill Chess.” Riley smiles as Kate stills at her casual admission. “Sure, at the beginning, I wanted her gone. But honestly? I figured you would be the better target anyway. I’d be eliminating the problem- Chess would either quit the team or OD and quit life as a whole. She’d be gone either way, and I’d be getting rid of you.” 

There are tears streaming down Kate’s face, but Riley doesn’t care. Cairo’s face, horror and fear and pain and betrayal painted all across it, almost makes her falter, but she looks back down at the trembling girl she’s holding and remembers she has a job to do. She has to save the team. Eliminate the problems; cut the cancerous girls and watch the rest grow stronger. It’s for their own good that she follows through with this. 

“I wanted to kill you, not Chess,” she continues, tracing her knife across Kate’s face and watching her flinch away. “You’re the problem. Ever since the first few minutes of that night I knew I’d have to change my plans. But it was so dark out… it was an honest mistake, really. I thought she was you. It doesn’t matter now. I can make up for my mistake. I can just kill you now instead!” Kate’s tears are streaming down her face, and she’d gone limp at some point throughout RIley’s confession. Riley just smiles brightly down at her. “You’re so annoying, so undermining. You can’t see what’s best for the team, not like I can.”

“You don’t know what’s best for the team!” Reese yells, finally finding her voice. Riley’s head snaps up to meet her eyes. She sounds angry and scared. Riley thinks it’s odd. These girls bullied her, called her terrible names, and she cares about them? That can’t be. But why else would she be scared? Riley thought she’d already made it clear that Reese wasn’t in danger. She hadn’t fought to get the girl on the team just to kill her, after all. Reese keeps yelling, her voice only rising in volume. “This isn’t what’s best! You’re tearing this team apart. This team is ruined because of you.”

Forget what she’d said. Maybe Reese was in danger. “How dare you accuse me of ruining this team when I did everything for it?” she snarls. The knife presses into Kate’s neck, a thin line of red running down from it. “I worked hard for this team. I threw everything I had into this team. I even killed for this team, I-”

“Riley, stop,” Cairo pleads, her voice thick with tears. Kate’s crying harder now, and she realizes belatedly that the blood running from her throat has gotten steadier as she puts more pressure on it. “This isn’t you,” Cairo continues. “I’ve known you since kindergarten; you cried the first day we met because a butterfly flew into the window. You cried last week because you ran over a bunny on the way home from school, this isn’t, you wouldn’t-”

Cairo has to stop, heavy sobs wracking her body as she tries to face what her best friend has become. Riley stares back, her eyes empty. Doesn’t Cairo know this was always who she was? She mourns the deaths of her former teammates, sure, but she understands why they had to die. It was for the team. Everything was always for the team. Cairo had always known that she’d do anything for the team, surely she’d made that clear over the years. 

‘Your problem is that you still see that stuttering girl from fourth grade,” Riley says, realizing what her best friend is missing. Well, now that she’s figured out what’s wrong, it’ll be easy to show Cairo the truth. She smiles benignly at her friend. “I’m not that girl anymore. I’m the captain of the team! I have to make sacrifices for them.” 

Not seeing any dawning understanding in the horrified expressions facing her, she frowns before realizing another tactic she can try to make them understand. “Eva!” The girl in question backs away, shaking her head, but Riley’s on a roll now. “Eva, you understand. You were team captain of the Titans. You have to do what’s best for the team. You have to make sacrifices-” 

“Yeah, like turning in homework late!” Eva says, her voice trembling. “Sacrifices are supposed to be missing birthday parties and having no spare time and missing sleep to get work in. You’re not supposed to murder, you’re not supposed to sacrifice your team.”

Riley shakes her head in disappointment. “Eva, I thought you’d understand! You were supposed to be a good team captain. I guess it’s a good thing I’m in charge. I understand what needs to be done. I need to eliminate threats to our success. I eliminated Farrah, I eliminated Chess, soon I’ll have eliminated Kate-”

Kate cries in pain and fear as the knife cuts a little deeper. Riley hasn’t meant for it to go so deep; she really doesn’t enjoy the killing part, but it has to be done. She prefers to do it quickly, but all the arguing has made her heated and she hasn't even noticed the knife pressing deeper and deeper. She doesn’t really mind though. After all the stupid brat has put her through, maybe a little pain is deserved. 

She’s distracted from her thoughts when a quiet voice speaks up. Honestly, Annleigh has been so quiet throughout everything that she has forgotten the girl was even there. “Why Farrah?” Annleigh asks, her voice full of sorrow. “Why did Farrah have to die? She was getting better. She was improving, she-”

“She was a drunk,” Riley says, her voice full of scorn. “She wouldn’t have gotten better for long. And there was no way to completely have both you and her on the team without something going wrong. We have to be perfect, so she had to go. Honestly, it’s kind of your fault,” she adds thoughtfully. “If you had just been better sisters to each other, maybe I would’ve let her live.”

Reese grabs Annleigh as she collapses, her face pale. Riley turns back to Kate. She doesn’t care about them right now. They’ll get over it and then they’ll move on as a team, better and stronger- like a phoenix. She can already see them at Regionals, winning first place, everything behind them and only a bright future awaiting. She just has to kill Kate first, and then it’ll all be okay. She takes a moment to consider her options before deeming slitting her throat to be too bloody and opting to just stab her instead. She brings the knife up, and the world goes into slow motion.

Eva’s hands are covering her mouth, and she’s shaking her head no. Reese is cradling Annleigh’s unconscious body to hers as if to protect it, and she’s gone deathly pale. Her eyes meet Cairo’s as the blade curves down, and her best friend looks so sad and betrayed that it almost hurts her- and then she remembers how grateful she’ll be when it’s all said and done, and she’s fine again. She looks down at Kate as the blade enters her body, and she sees the girl’s eyes flicker shut as she passes out. She shoves the soon-to-be corpse away and watches the blood pool around her. Everything snaps back into regular time. 

Someone is screaming, she doesn’t know who. It doesn’t matter; the basement is soundproof. They’ll stop eventually. Eva reaches for some blankets and seems to be on the verge of running to stop Kate’s bleeding, but Riley just raises the knife a little and she changes her mind. Reese has buried her head into Annleigh’s shoulders as her body shakes with sobs. Riley’s head tilts with confusion as she realizes Cairo is the one screaming.

But Cairo hated Kate. They used to joke all the team about the party they’d throw if she ever left the team. Kate was a menace and a terrible person, and getting rid of her had just done the team a favor. Cairo was supposed to be rejoicing with her, not staring at Kate’s body and screaming. 

“Cairo? Why are you screaming?” she asks, uncertain.

Cairo glares up at her, her screams having turned into wracking sobs. “Um, I don’t know,” she chokes out, “because you just murdered our teammate?” 

Riley considers this. “But you hated her.”

“I didn’t want her dead! I didn’t want anyone dead. No one was supposed to die,” Cairo has lurched to her feet, and she’s staring Riley down. She doesn’t like how Cairo’s reacting to this.

“You were supposed to understand. You were supposed to be on my team. I did this for us,” Riley explains. She doesn’t understand Cairo’s reaction at all. This isn’t how it’s supposed to go.

“I was always going to be on your team, but not when it comes to killing our friends. If this is what being on your team means, I’m off of it. Listen, I don’t know what made you do this, but I’m not going to help you!” Cairo yells. 

“Are you sure? Don’t you remember what happened to the last girl who left the team?” Riley gestures towards Kate’s body and the blood surrounding it. Cairo glances over and her face turns an odd color. She forces her eyes back towards Riley’s and glares into them. 

“You wouldn’t kill me,” she states confidently.

“Cairo, please don’t make me do this. You’re my best friend, my co-captain. I will do anything for this team, including eliminating you, but I’d really rather not,” Riley pleads. She doesn’t understand this at all. Cairo is supposed to be happy, grateful, supportive. Actually, Cairo’s supposed to be a lot of things she’s not. Her eyes narrow as she sizes her best friend up. She’s not being a very good best friend right now. Maybe… maybe she deserves to die too. 

Cairo’s eyes widen as Riley raises the knife again, and she reaches for it. They grapple with it for a bit, one trying to kill and one trying to knock the knife away. Riley’s eyes widen as she feels a sharp pain enter her abdomen, and Cairo stops fighting immediately. She looks down to see the knife in her body. “Oh,” she says meekly, and collapses. Cairo’s hovering over her immediately. 

“No, no, no,” she whimpers desperately as Riley starts to feel herself lose consciousness. She catches a glimpse of Eva rushing by them with the blankets to try and stop Kate’s bleeding, and she looks over at Reese to see her hugging the now-awake Annleigh to her side. She looks back up at Cairo, and her best friend is desperately crying as she frantically tries to keep her alive. For a second she thinks maybe she understands the pain that she’s caused, and then she’s gone.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has an open ending. For me, I picture Riley waking up handcuffed to a hospital bed. Kate lives, Riley gets carted off to prison, it's not a happy ending but it's as close as they can get. Again, feel free to picture what you want though. 
> 
> This was my first fic! Please don't crucify me for it. I'm open to criticism because I know it needs it lmao. Sorry for how badly it's written, I just really wanted a fic where Riley doesn't go down so easily.


End file.
